Liz Warren | Storyteller

I sat down with my cup of coffee this morning and read an article in the current Smithsonian magazine about the Chinese artist Ai WeiWei, who currently cannot leave China and is under constant surveillance.  He recalls an incident in his life which inspires his latest artistic endeavor.  Ai recounts that his father was a great poet.  He also supported Mao Zedong’s Communist party.  Later, during t Mao’s purge of intellectuals, Ai and his family were sent to a labor camp. Ai recalls that the physical hardships were terrible, but he says, “I think the hardest thing for my father, or for other people in prison, was being cut out from people’s minds.  I still remember when my father was in exile in Xinjiang, he received an anonymous postcard; it said something about the 30-year anniversary of one of his poems. …it meant that someone didn’t forget.  My father was deeply touched, in the middle of the desert, where he thought no one remembered him.”

Reading this article brought to my mind the following short story found in Arthur W. Frank’s book Letting Stories Breath.  The story is titled “Christmas Eve” and is by Eduardo Galeano.

            “Fernando Silva ran the children’s hospital in Managua.  On Christmas Eve, he worked late into the night.  Firecrackers were exploding and fireworks lit up the sky when Fernando decided it was time to leave.  They were expecting him at home to celebrate the holiday.

            He took one last look around, checking to see that everything was in order, when he heard cottony footsteps behind him.  He turned to find one of the sick children walking after him.  In the half light he recognized the lonely, doomed child.  Fernando recognized the face already lined with death and those eyes asking for forgiveness, or perhaps permission.”

            Fernando walked over to him and the boy gave him his hand.  “Tell someone,…” the child whispered. “Tell someone I’m here